


Solid Ground

by context_please



Series: A Million Little Pieces - Drabbles for Macx's Pushing Boundaries Series [4]
Category: Jurassic Park (Movies), Jurassic World (2015)
Genre: Bromance, Dan Carter is made of win, Denial, Gen, I can't leave OCs alone in peace, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sorry Not Sorry, This is a tribute, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-08 23:40:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4325298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/context_please/pseuds/context_please
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The girls watch him curiously as he waves at them. Their eyes are cool as ever – and yet, they are not cold. He’d been scared of them, once. Was worried they would attack any human they could get their teeth into. </p><p>But he's in the new habit of listening. He gave them a chance. They proved him wrong.</p><p>Drabble for Macx's Threshold Shift.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Solid Ground

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Macx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macx/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Threshold Shift](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4242024) by [Macx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macx/pseuds/Macx). 



> Fuck. This was difficult to write. Dan Carter is so awesome I hope I've done him justice.
> 
> Carter is Macx's OC. I am borrowing him, and may return him if you ask nicely. But you should probably avail yourself of the epicness that is Macx's Tainted and Threshold Shift. (Or you can stay, but good luck understanding this.)
> 
> Onwards!

Water laps at his boots.

The sky swirls around him. Greys and whites and blacks merge into a giant mass of angry cloud. It’s thick over his head, an endless carpet, but he doesn’t stop to feel fear. The sky rumbles, furious. He turns his eyes away from the blinding flash of blue that courses through the clouds, watches the foam cling to his boots.

Sticky air buffets him, catching in his fatigues. His TAC vest pulls heavily on his shoulders, but the Sauer MPX-S is light in his hands. It’s long, black, and deadly. The grip is familiar against his gloved palm, trigger the perfect fit. The cartridge hangs off of it like a string. The barrel is thick with the silencer. It’s like something out of a sci-fi movie, sleek and alien.

The air around him crackles. His skin tingles with it, hair rising along his arms. The long jacket covers it, but he can’t ignore the feeling. Unease squirms in his intestines, demanding attention he can’t spare. Thunder rolls wildly over his head, lightning stabbing mercilessly at the earth. Ahead of him, the jungle flares blindingly. Leaves swirl in patches of white and black. Vines glow silver, twined around the trees like a lover going in for the kill.

He glances to his left; watches Marxham pull off his night vision goggles. They’re useless with this much lightning poisoning the atmosphere. Carter tucks his own into his vest, hopes he can use them later.

Marxham barely spares him a look before his attention is back to the jungle looming ahead of them. He’s tense, wary. Maybe he can feel it too – the sense of disaster on the horizon, of eyes on them. Cool, watery sensation slides down his spine. It’s not raining.

‘Marxham?’ he asks, following his gaze to the jungle.

‘I don’t know, Sir,’ the sergeant replies haltingly, words slow.

Carter’s frown deepens. ‘Keep me posted.’ His stomach rolls.

The jungle rises before him. The storm’s fucked with the plan – now the lightning’s here they can’t use their night-vision goggles, and the clouds have kept any natural light from getting in. They’re flying blind.

He stares into the jungle. Inky blackness stares back. It’s eerily silent. The animals are quiet, cowed by the storm. The complete absence of them grates at him. This isn’t right.

He keys his radio. ‘Colonel, we cannot execute the plan. I advise we return to base and –‘

‘ _Major_ ,’ his voice cracks lips a whip. ‘ _Keep your fucking opinions to yourself. Proceed as instructed_.’

Carter gnashes his teeth, hands tightening on the MPX-S. ‘Yes, Sir,’ he spits out.

He leads them into the jungle, the sky screaming above him and his insides twisting dangerously.

 

 

 

 The inky mirror… Moving hurt. He couldn’t think straight. He caught sight of his own blood-smeared face, deathly pale in the soft green light. Fragments of ivory poked through in places, once fine features getting worse as time went on. The flesh had drawn away like melting wax from the single eye he could see. Half of a crazed face stared, skull-like. His head was reeling, his breath coming in long, harsh draws. His pupils were sluggish responding to the light. His chest ached. His skin was hot and dry. The dark eyes made him still. His dead, cold eyes. No life in those eyes.

 

 

 The light burns.

He squeezes his eyes shut, rolling to the side.

‘Major, don’t move,’ a voice orders.

He obeys. Thinking is hard. His head is stuffed full of cotton candy, soft and fluffy and sweet. He can’t feel his body, but that doesn’t matter. He thinks it should worry him. He thinks he should think. But none of that makes sense, so he dismisses it.

Everything’s out of focus when he reopens his eyes. White walls and white floors blur into each other. He’s not really sure if this place has walls – it’s probably just a giant sphere. And of all the things floating around in his useless mind, that seems to make sense.

Brown and white-pink swim before his eyes. He blinks rapidly, the colours forming into a shape that’s recognizable. It’s a face. Hazel eyes staring at him. They have something in them – something he can’t be bothered to name, even as another part of him whispers it might be important.

‘You need to lie still,’ the voice says. The face’s mouth is moving so it must belong to him. ‘Dan. Stop moving.’

He’s not sure what he does, but the pressure against his side lessens a little. The skin pulls, and he’s only vaguely aware of it. He can’t really feel the sensation of whatever-it-is against his side – just the pulling as he moves his arm away.

The face thinks it’s enough. ‘It’s okay, Major. You’re in the hospital a few clicks out from the base.’

Hospital? That doesn’t sound right.

‘Colonel?’ he slurs, and holy shit is that his voice? ‘Marxham?’ he slurs again, to make sure the voice belongs to him. He feels like he should be dreaming.

The face twists. It’s ugly. ‘They’re gone.’

His brain scrambles to understand, to process the words. ‘On…holiday?’

‘The Colonel and sergeant Marxham are dead, Carter.’

‘Oh,’ he sighs out. Dead. What does that mean again? Holiday sounds much better than dead. He sighs again, head pounding. Nothing makes sense.

Dead. 

 

 

‘I don’t know what you want from me,’ he snaps.

‘Major, I want you to talk to me. Tell me about that night.’

He finally turns to face her, jaw tight and shoulders aching. She’s perfectly prim, uniform jacket pressed and ironed, hair piled gracefully atop her head. He wonders what it’s like inside her head. Wonders whether she’s as fucked up as the rest of the world. Why she gets to be high and mighty. Why she isn’t on the patients’ couch, mind poked and prodded as much as her body is. She doesn’t know shit about him. Something bubbles up in his chest, seizes his lungs.

‘The jungle was fucking creepy, the Colonel told me to fuck off and everything went to shit. Colonel Wilson and sergeant Marxham died – isn’t that enough for you?’

He wants to say more, but his throat collapses. His lips won’t form the words.

‘Well,’ the psychologist says, eyes too sharp on his own, ‘you could start by telling me about the dreams.’

 

He felt for his pulse in his neck. It was racing. His wrists looked raw. He’d left them huddled together. He quickened his pace.

 

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Dan snarls, crossing his arms over his chest. His teeth come together forcefully, clicking loudly in the sudden silence. The couch is too soft. His pants are too loose. The cushions sink under his weight, like he sank under the weight of his TAC vest.

‘What about the flashbacks?’

 

The Colonel was screaming. He looked dazed, writhed in a lover’s agony, and there was a jagged cut pouring blood down broken ribs. Blood on pale dust. He arched his back in a great stretch, the muscles in his arms straining. A loud, hollow boom. A pulverizing crash of metal into flesh and bone. Enemy. Fists pounding flesh, breaking bones. His head vanished in a spray of red mist and splintered cartilage. Diving away, a terrible gout of blood came off him like death. Fingers came away slick with blood. His tear-stained skin was cold now. His mouth. His sobs in the night, going through the motions of vomiting upon the dry earth, shook his whole frame.

 

Dan’s fingers clench so hard his knuckles feel like they’re splitting his skin apart. ‘I’m fine,’ he growls. His throat blazes, muscles in his legs twitching. ‘I just need to return to duty.’

‘Dan,’ she sighs, rubbing her hands over her face. ‘You know I can’t clear you. Not when you’re like this.’ Has the balls to look sad about it.

 

Lying near him in a bloody heap were two bodies. Gasping, they began to stir and get up. A body thumped down amongst long-dead skeletons, skulls, hands, and feet. Sounds were too loud – clattering metal and panic-stricken screams.

 

The world tilts around him. He pushes himself up, the stabbing in his side mingling with the needles in his chest. He can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. ‘Fucking fine,’ he spits, slamming the door behind him.

 

 

 

 They discharge him.

He cleans up his act, goes into the private sector. The US military may not clear him because he’s fucked in the head – InGen doesn’t care about that: welcomes him with open arms. Dan Carter may be shaky and cracked but he’s not broken. Not quite.

And it takes a year: one long, painful year, for everything to fade. He’s not the same person he was then, not since the bomb cut open most of his side – and yet, it feels like a good thing. His feet are solid on the ground. His shoulders don’t ache. His lungs are clear, his breathing easy.

He feels human for the first time since everything went to shit.

InGen send him to Isla Nublar to fix the lab’s fuck up. To be a better Vic Hoskins.

Dan is good at fixing things, now.

 

 

 

Jurassic World is awe-inspiring.

It’s all he can think, as he drives along the back roads, keeping an eye out for Owen’s raptors. Two years after the death and destruction of the I-Rex incident, the theme park is still going strong. Buildings had been broken. Lives were lost. Dinosaurs were slaughtered. Jurassic World was in ruins, when he first stepped onto the island.

Now kids run around, laughing madly, where the raptors once faced the I-Rex. Chatter and smiles replace screaming and terror. It’s like nothing ever happened.

Except he can see it in their eyes.

Can see it in the way Laurel watches Sue warily, wondering if she’ll become like the I-Rex. Sees it in Claire’s hawk-like supervision of the labs. In Reggie’s fierce protection of the herbivores under his care. In the faces of his own security personnel.

He orders them to put aside their fears and focus on what’s in front of them. Tells them to stop letting terror push them to make mistakes.

And Dan? Well, he gives the dinos a chance.

He listens to the trainers. Asks questions. Dan knows there are talented people on this island – he wonders how Hoskins missed it.

Colonel Wilson taught him a lesson once. He doesn’t need to learn it again. He listens to the people around him. Takes their advice.

He goes to the Apatosaurus stables, asks Reggie about the structure of the herd. He reinforces the outer perimeter when Reggie tells him about the juveniles that like to play there.

He suggests strengthening the glass viewing area by Sue’s enclosure and sees the relief in Laurel’s eyes.

He asks Nancy why she looks concerned and triples the security by the back entrance to the mosa exhibit when she asks him to. His security team still turns away stupid tourists trying to catch a closer glimpse of the mosasaurus.

Dan Carter still has a brain, and he uses it. Once, he sized up terrorists and shot his enemies. Now he conducts risk assessments and organizes extra security.

The two aren’t that different, really.

 

 

 

Dan pulls up to the raptor paddock, getting out of his SUV. He’s wearing his usual black BDU pants and boots, but he leaves his thigh holster and gun in the car. The girls watch him curiously as he waves at them. Their eyes are cool as ever – and yet, they are not cold. He’d been scared of them, once. Was worried they would attack any human they could get their teeth into.

But he’s in the new habit of listening. He gave them a chance. They proved him wrong.

Blue’s eyes stay on him as Charlie and Delta go back to their naps, curling into each other. The sunlight beats down on their languid bodies, catching the green stripes on their skin. The sight makes Dan want to lay down and nap in the sun, too. Echo follows him as he walks the short distance to Owen’s house, a bounce in her step. She looks paler than ever in the bright light, orange eyes vivid in her face. Her tail whips around as she weaves back and forth between Dan and Blue.

‘You’re a bundle of energy today,’ he says. ‘Hello to you too.’ He’d had a puppy, as a kid. The little guy had been covered in a thick layer of fuzz and had an attitude twice the size of his body, brown eyes darting around constantly. But he’d always be waiting at the door when he got home, ready to jump on Dan once and then run frantically around the house, as if he were announcing Dan’s presence to the furniture. Echo’s nuzzling Blue excitedly, pushing her shoulder into her sister’s, and she’s exactly the same but so different.

Blue snorts at him, amusement lurking in her eyes.

Dan watches Echo bound away, trees rustling in her wake. ‘I don’t envy you,’ he tells Blue, a wry twist to his mouth. Blue trills at him, and he imagines it’s a sarcastic _thank you_. He’s never heard Blue’s thoughts – isn’t sure whether he _wants_ to – but he imagines she’s quite the smartass. Maybe that’s why he likes her.

‘You’re welcome,’ he replies cheerily.

‘Echo harassing you again?’ Owen asks, suddenly beside him. A year ago, he would have surprised Dan, but he’s too used to it now. Just like the raptors, there’s a certain degree of predictability to him, even if the danger of vicious animal instinct lurks in the background.

‘Only a little,’ he replies, turning his eyes to Owen. He’s dressed in his usual fare, shoulders relaxed, posture commanding and eyes deadly. He’s intimidating, all controlled strength and precise movement. But Dan doesn’t feel threatened – this is the man he’s spent two years getting to know. The man who doesn’t care what the world thinks of him. The guy that laughs easily despite all he’s been through. Who understands what it’s like to lose almost everything and gain the universe by accident.

A friend.

‘You look like shit,’ Owen tells him, a smirk on his face.

‘Between the poachers and the nightmares, I haven’t slept much,’ he says.

Fuck. He did not mean to say that. But it’s too late. It’s already out there.

‘The Forces?’ Owen asks. The smile is gone from his face. His eyes are intense, focused on Dan with way too much concentration. His hands hook on his belt loops. It’s his _don’t fuck with me_ posture.

Dan drags his eyes to Blue, but she offers no respite. She’s close now, nose pushed up against the fence, cataloguing his reactions. She’s following the conversation word-for-word. Curiosity oozes from her like a physical thing. She’s intrigued.

‘Yeah,’ Dan replies. Looks into Blue’s eyes, unafraid. ‘Not all of us have a raptor pack to make us feel better,’ he teases.

Owen dodges his attempt to force levity on the situation. ‘If you want someone to talk to, you know where to find me.’

Dan smiles. It doesn’t feel foreign on his face. ‘I know,’ he says. The tension leaks out of his shoulders. He takes a deep, unhindered breath. ‘Now, do I have to drag your ass into this staff meeting? Senior staff means you, Grady.’

Owen laughs, strolls casually over to the SUV. ‘Fuck you, Carter,’ he calls back, shit-eating grin on his face.

Dan turns to Blue, sees trust in her gaze. Promises her, ‘I’ll have him home by sundown.’

She chuffs back at him, eyes shining.

 

 

 

Colonel Wilson and Sergeant Marxham leave him alone that night.

**Author's Note:**

> Dan always struck me as being in his mid-thirties, so I wondered how he made it to Jurassic World when he hadn't served his twenty years. Nothing like a little trauma to liven things up.
> 
> Macx, I hope I've done him justice. This took so long to write because Dan is so awesome and I didn't want to fuck up. Also my laptop crashed and decided it didn't want to save my edits, so if something doesn't make sense, please let me know. (I'm so nervous I nearly didn't post this.)
> 
> Alternatively, the flashbacks are all from an experimental piece I wrote ages ago. I used the cut-up method (taking words from a sentence in a book, scrambling them up, and putting them back together again) and it yielded some interesting results. These snippets seemed to fit here, so I shoved them in. Everyone should try the cut-up method at least once - it's fun and gets you some really strange, fucked-up writing. 
> 
> Did I do Dan Carter justice? You decide.


End file.
